Wednesday, September 16, 2015

WWF says we risk losing species critical to human food security unless
action is taken to halt overfishing and other threats to marine life

Yellowtail and albacore tuna are becoming increasingly rare, as well as bluefin.

Photograph: Brian Skerry/WWF

Tuna and mackerel populations have suffered a “catastrophic” decline
of nearly three quarters in the last 40% years, according to new
research.
WWF and the Zoological Society of London found that numbers of the
scombridae family of fish, which also includes bonito, fell by 74%
between 1970 and 2012, outstripping a decline of 49% for 1,234 ocean
species over the same period.

The conservation charity warned that we face losing species critical
to human food security, unless drastic action is taken to halt
overfishing and other threats to marine life.
Louise Heaps, chief advisor on marine policy at WWF UK, said: “This
is catastrophic. We are destroying vital food sources, and the ecology
of our oceans.”
Attention in recent years has focused on species such as bluefin tuna, now on the verge of extinction,
but other close relatives commonly found on restaurant menus or in
tins, such as yellowtail tuna and albacore, are now also becoming
increasingly scarce. Only skipjack, also often tinned, is showing “a
surprising degree of resilience”, according to Heaps, one of the authors
of the Living Blue Planet report, published on Wednesday.

Sea cucumbers, a luxury food in Asia, have fallen 98%.

Photograph: Cat Holloway/WWF

Other species suffering major declines include sea cucumbers, a
luxury food in Asia, which have fallen 98% in number in the Galapagos
and 94% in in the Egyptian Red Sea.
Populations of endangered
leatherback turtles, which can be seen in UK waters, have plummeted.
Overfishing is not the only culprit behind a halving of marine species since 1970.
Pollution, including plastic detritus which can build up in the digestive systems of fish;
the loss of key habitats such as coastal mangrove swamps; and climate
change are also taking a heavy toll, with the oceans becoming more
acidic as a result of the carbon dioxide we are pouring into the
atmosphere.

Half of marine life wiped out in just 40 years, says WWF

“I am terrified about acidification,”
Heaps told the Guardian.
“That situation is looking very bleak. We were
taught in the 1980s that the solution to pollution is dilution, but
that suggests the oceans have an infinite capacity to absorb our
pollution. That is not true, and we have reached the capacity now.”
She predicts that all of the world’s coral reefs could be effectively
lost by 2050, if current trends are allowed to continue unchecked, and
said that evidence of the effects of acidification – which damages tiny
marine animals that rely on calcium to make their shells and other
organs - could be found from the Antarctic to the US west coast.

Tubbataha reef in the Philippines appears bleached due to an infestation
of crown-of-thorn starfish. Photograph: Juergen Freund/WWF

Although overfishing is a global problem, the Pacific is of
particular concern, as the Chinese, Japanese and Korean fleets are among
the world’s biggest, greater in size and fishing capacity than
Europe’s.
Chinese fishermen are also increasingly fishing in other waters, expanding their reach. Shark-finning, the practice of removing only the fins from sharks and throwing the bodies back,
to make the Asian delicacy shark-fin soup, has taken a severe toll on
stocks, with a quarter of shark species predicted to become extinct in a
decade if nothing is done.
However, Heaps said there were solutions.
“It’s not all doom-and-gloom. There are choices we can make. But it is urgent.”
Overfishing can be managed with better governance – Heaps points to
the recovery in North Sea cod stocks as an example of how management can
work.
She also urged governments to adopt the sustainable development
goals, proposed by the United Nations and including provisions for
protecting marine life, at the UN general assembly later this month.

A silvertip shark swimming in Beqa lagoon, near Suva, the capital of Fiji.

Photograph: Brent Stirton/WWF

Heaps urged people only to eat fish certified as sustainable by the Marine Stewardship Council
(MSC), which examines fisheries against a range of criteria to ensure
that they are being properly managed.
An increasing number of fisheries
have been accredited by the MSC, and at present about half of global
white fish stocks are certified, including many in the North Sea.
She called for more partnerships between private sector fishing
fleets and governments, in order to conserve stocks.
“We need to keep
[fishermen] on board, because they must see that good governance is in
their interests,” she said.